Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Interview: Camel Pro Champion Bubba Shobert The champ's parting thoughts By He nny Ray Abrams After the 1988 racing ,season ended, fourtime Camel P r o Series champ Bu b b a Shobert let it be known that h e would not defend his American title in 1989, instead he would be compe ting inthe World Champio nship 'SO cc O Road Race Seri es. We visi ted Shobert at his Carmel Valley, Ca li fo rn ia, h om e and got th e cha m p 's parting th oughts. Let's sta rt out by ta lking abou t dirt Ira c k. W h at was rh e d i fferen ce bet ween this year a nd last? I think it was a number of th in gs. I went into th e season not rea lly th in kin g so much o f th at season as I was thinkin g abo ut th e future. In stead o f do in g o ne year a t a tim e I was a lrea dy looking at go ing to Eu rope. Basically there were a lot of ra ces wh ere m y co ncen tra tio n wa sn 't there lik e it had been in the pa st. Ru iming th e team was a littl e bit mor e pressure, a litt le bit more work, but I don 't think I ca n use tha t for a n excuse for wh y in any of the races I didn 't do as good. just probab ly not as h ungry for it as I was th e previous yea rs. I wa nt ed to go out, try to win, try to break the record. But m y main goal was to win th e Camel Pro cha m pionsh ip . And I kn ew I didn't have to wi n races to win tha t cha m pionsh ip. It 's a ba d feeling and it 's hard to do sometimes. That's basically where I was a t. At so me races I didn 't want to hang m y neck o u t because I kn ew I didn 't have to. Then o n th e other hand to win the o ther cha m p io ns h ips I had to han g it o u t a t cert a in tim es. Every tim e I did th at I was puttin g the Ca me l Pro cha m pio ns h ip at ri sk , th at 's th e o ne that paid . a ll the money. Did you have a bonus coming to you if vou wo n the Gran d Na tiona l Championship? No. T he budget th at Honda gave me to run th e team o n was to ru n th e Ca mel Pro races. The ad d itio na l dirt tra ck races I cou ld use their equipment. As fa r as getting to th e races a nd that sort of thing, th e budget was co ming o ut o f m y own pocket to speak of. Did you not ice that th e Harleys were mak ing more power than th ey could use and th e Hondas weren't? We mad e a few improvem ents and stuff. They p ut th at weigh t rule on us. In previo us year s Skip had my dirt tra c ker down close to 300 pounds. And then they ca me up with this minim um weight ru le of 320. And we hu ng some weights on it. And I noticed through the year a t some tracks I had a diffi cult tim e in th e tu rn s, the middle of th e tu rns, getting the thing stopped going in and not hook ing u p . On th e half mil es I co uld never get the thing to work like I had pr eviousl y. And I feel a lot o f it was the weights. And we never did testing with dispers ing the weigh t in different p laces. We ju st hung so me weights o n th e bo tto m wh ich I don ' t thin k was a good idea. And I'm su re if we were do ing it again we wou ld do so mething different . Did you sense tha t the ot her riders noticed you were n't as hungry? I th in k (Sco tt) Parker was defini tely th e h u ngriest gu y out there. And they mad e some improvem en ts o n the bik es and he had gotten smarter after gcttin g seco nd for a co u p le o f years. He'd learned what he had to do . An d h e did jus t t ha I. H e didn ' t d o any th ing stu pid. At Peor ia, a pl ace wh ere I co u nte d o n picki ng up a lot o f poi nt s o n hi m , he was in good shape and he was rig h t there. He fini shed thi rd a nd I fin ish ed seco nd. Where previousl y they 'd go 10 Peori a a nd try to run thc 750 wh en everybody else was running 600s a nd usu a lly it wo u ld cost th em . Do you think wh en you gave your bikes to Dan In gra m and he did so well that yo.u in so me ~ay diminishe d you r rep u tat io n? I kn ew he was a good rider a nd capable o f doing good. I'v e never p layed dow n that m y bik es weren' t better tha n every body else's. Because I tho ug h t th ey were. It was a co mbinatio n. O ur team was bett er. I'd never th ought that m y Hondas were just like everybody else's and I was bett er. I'v e never sa id th at . The factory's a lways go t th e best bik es. Look at th e Harl eys: Parker a nd Chris Carr. Wh o else has won a rac e o n a Harl ey exce p t( Steve) Mor eh ead wh o won a cou p le o f half mi les and Sa n j ose? But last year not o ne sing le privat eer exce p t Ingra m at Syracuse wo n a National on a Honda. That 's evidence right th ere that th e 20pounds hurt th e Hondas mor e th an th c 300-p o u nd lim it put o n th e Harley-Davidson. What's going to happen to yo ur dirt tra ck bikes? We just fou nd out Honda is loan in g me those bi kes. They wa n t one 600 a nd o ne 750 ba ck and I' m ' ge tti ng a ll o f the o ther stuff on loan. And it 's probab ly go ing to go to Skip (Ea ken) and Dan Ingram to do a team. , Since yo u're pretty much done with dirt tracks, what do yo u see that's right with them and what's wr ong with them? _ Well , I just feel like th e reason I'm not dirt tra cking isn 't because I'm cryi ng over so me th ing th at isn 't fair. That 's not m y reason for going to Europe. But th e future for me is go ing to Europe to race. I just feel th at the d irt tra ck is really going downhill a nd it's main ly du e to the people that are involved at the AMA and running the thing. They've go t some people in th ere that th e riders a ren' t willing to race with. You go to a race a nd it's a co ns ta nt a rg u me nt at the riders' meeting. Nobody works together. They do n' t really listen to th e riders. The riders do n't ha ve anything to do with the ru les tha t are put in to pla y. Wha t about the advisory board? Don't the riders ha ve representatives there? T he re ar e two rider representatives, but I th in k they have one vote. So the riders have one vote against a six o r seven perso n boa rd. Most of th e people on th e board probab ly never attend a di rt track race all year. I just feel the orga nization is rea lly laggi ng in that part. There's a movement to try to get rid of AMA dirt track boss J .B.No rris . Yeah, a nd I wou ld be beh ind that 100%. When ]. B.Norris was involved with the Springfield Mile . . . he came in th ere .. . he was in charge of th e IMDA (Ill ino is Motorcycle Deal ers Association ) for th at type of event. And a fter th ey brought the Springfield Mile back a ll of a sudden they get 15,000 spec ta to rs after not ha vin g a race there for 25 years or how ever long it was . So he looks lik e a hero . Springf ield's the type o f place wh ere people are go ing to sho w up to wa tch a race there. H e go t a lot of cred it for tha t a nd I guess th e AMA then hired him . T hen again I think we got so meone inv olved with it wh o rea lly does n't have any backgr ound for tha t job . Is there anything you're go ing to mi ss a bout it ? Oh yeah , th e com pe ti tio n is grea t a nd the mil es a re p rob abl y - Eddie La WSOll wo u ld tell you th e same th ing -that th ere's just nothing like them. Kenn y (feels) th e same way. H e ca me back a nd raced Springfield. It's a 101'0 f fu n. There 's no other kind of racin g lik e th at. And I guess the ' clos est thing is goi ng to be the 500 World Championship. ' Do yo u have any suggestions on what th ey can do to help dirt track raci ng? Well , th at 's just the problem. They don' t listen . And it 's go ing to tak e a lot o f cha nges to brin g it back. At first I th ought I'd like to be ab le to do th at . And I even talked to Parker a nd Chris Carr. And that would be th e best th ing if we could have one H arl ey representative and o ne H onda representativ e. And Scotty's mad e money a nd I've made some money a nd we were going to put some of o u r o wn money into a riders ' union to get th e riders stic ki ng tog ether a nd getti ng some changes made. But now with me going to Europe, unfortunatel y I'm not going to be involved in that end of it. So I don 't see right now wh ere there's goi ng to be much cha nge in it. It' s disgusting and you com p lain. You co m p la in to the head person a t th e AMA which is Ed You ngblood a nd they tell you th a t raci ng is the smallest part of their busi ness. However ma n y em ployees they ha ve a t th e AMA, o n ly six or seven of them work in racing. So they th ink that is a ll that raci ng mea ns to th em. Bu t a ll o f those people who ho ld AMA cards and go on th ose tou r rides a nd stuff, those ar e p robabl y the biggest part of the fans tha t come to th e races. Is there an ything they could do to get th e rac es started on time ? It 's difficu lt. Dirt tracking is difficult because of th e track co nd itions. In road racing you go there and th e pavement sta ys the same all day . In dirt tra cking, unfortunately you get there and it's too hot or too windy and it dri es o u t th e track and it makes it tough and I know that part of it. But there's been some even ts that ha ve been totall y uncalled for , like when th e race started three hours late or did n' t get over until two o'clock in the morning. Do you have an y spe cific race that stands out as th e best one ever? T he last race o f the yea r at Sacramento. It was n't a good race as far as the competition. Scotty won by q uite a ways . I ran second alone. Bu t tha t race was ru n a nd promoted by far the best o f any dirt track I' ve ever seen promoted. And it was promoted by Agaj an ian a nd those guys. They ra n it in th ree hours. There were no junior s, there wasn 't a bu nc h o f crap. It was jusr .a clean-cut show. T ha t stands o ut in m y m in d mor e this year th an a ny o f th e races tha t I went to and won. T hat was more pleasing to me than a race that I won. It sa tisfied me because it sa tisfied th e

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